by Mallory Kane
As if conjured by her voice, a place on his neck began to itch. He slapped at it, cursing quietly at himself, at the UnSub, at whatever strange power Holly held over him that made the thought of making love with her unendurably attractive and scared him more than the worst foe he’d ever faced.
If Eric was right—and Jack hadn’t seen him wrong yet—then the stalker was watching their every move, and escalating fast.
What the hell was Jack supposed to do now? Seduce his wife to catch her stalker?
Chapter Seven
After a strained dinner, during which Aunt Bode mumbled incoherently and hardly ate anything and Uncle Virgil seemed distracted, Holly and Jack had washed the dishes.
“We’re all done cleaning up the kitchen,” Holly said, kissing her great-uncle’s cheek. “We’re going to go. We didn’t get much sleep last night.” Realizing what she’d said, she rushed to explain. “I mean, getting in late from the airport and getting Jack settled.”
She rubbed her temple. The migraine medicine she’d taken was making it hard to think, and everything she said seemed colored by the memory of Jack’s arms encircling her and his kisses tantalizing the sensitive skin of her neck.
“You’ll call the Home Health Agency tomorrow?”
She nodded wearily. “I’ll check with them first thing in the morning.”
“Thanks for cooking supper, Jack. That was good chicken. Even Bode ate a few bites.”
“Good night, Aunt Bode.” As Holly kissed her aunt’s forehead, out of the corner of her eye she saw Jack hand a small paper envelope to her uncle. They spoke in low tones that she couldn’t hear.
In the car, Holly asked Jack about their exchange. “What were you giving Uncle Virgil?”
Jack shifted in his seat. “Tire scrapings off the curb. He can have them run through the crime lab in Jackson, see what make of tire they came from.”
“Do you think my family is in danger?”
Jack shook his head. “He’s interested in you. The only reason he would target your family is if he saw them as a barrier, keeping him from you. But they’re not the barrier. I am.”
“If he wants me, why doesn’t he just come and get me?” Holly’s head was starting to pound again.
“That’s part of his obsession. He wants you to come to him. He thinks once he removes all the barriers, you will.”
“I hate this.”
Jack didn’t say anything. She hadn’t expected him to. He wasn’t the type to offer false comfort. Paradoxically, that made her feel better and worse at the same time. He respected her, didn’t discount her intelligence. But once in a while it might be nice to be held and told that everything was going to be all right, even if they both knew the words were a lie.
Back home, Holly watched Jack change from attentive husband to focused professional. The transformation sent a chill down her spine and ratcheted up the pain in her head.
“I’m sorry, but I have to lie down,” she said. “I don’t mean to be rude—”
Jack held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it. This has been a long day. I can fend for myself. I need to unpack anyhow.”
“Oh.” Holly remembered something she’d thought about earlier, then forgotten. Her wedding dress and veil were hanging in the guest room closet. “You won’t be able to get anything into the closet. Let me move something.” She went into the guest room.
Behind her, Jack said, “It looks like a big closet. There should be plenty of room.”
“You obviously didn’t look inside, because my wedding dress takes up—” Her words died on her lips.
The closet was empty. The beautiful dress she’d worn for her wedding to Brad was gone. Her head throbbed and her thoughts spun dizzily. She swayed, and the edge of her vision went black.
Next thing she knew she was cradled against a rock-hard chest and supported by arms that felt like they could hold up the whole world. For an instant, she leaned into his strength, but then she straightened.
“My dress. My veil. They’re gone. They’ve hung in this closet for six years—” She stopped on a little sob. Her hand covered her mouth.
“When is the last time you know for sure they were here?”
“I don’t know.” In her mind’s eye she pictured a shadowy figure holding her dress, touching it. “Oh God, he took them.”
Jack cursed silently and richly as he held Holly. The stalker had taken her wedding dress, just as Eric had predicted. Had the man been in the house tonight? Jack hadn’t seen any signs of entry.
He’d been too damn tired to unpack last night, so he didn’t know if her dress had been in the closet yesterday or not.
“Holly.” He put his hand on the back of her head, caressing her soft hair for a moment before pushing her away enough to look into her eyes. He gripped her shoulders, shaking her lightly to keep her focused. “Think. When did you last open this closet?”
She wiped her eyes. “I…don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Think. What else do you keep in here?”
She met his gaze, and he saw her remember. Her cheeks regained some color and her brown-gold eyes flashed.
“My suitcase. I got my suitcase out of this closet before I left for Chicago.”
“And you saw the dress?”
She laughed, a short sound with just an edge of hysteria. “You can’t—couldn’t miss it. The skirt took up over half the closet space.”
So the killer had taken it some time in the past two weeks. Maybe the day she left. Maybe tonight.
Jack led her back to the living room and urged her to sit down on the couch. He sat on the coffee table in front of her. She looked wan and tired, like the photograph tucked between the pages of Danny’s casebook in his pocket.
He’d never wanted to see her looking that way again. It was the promise he always made to himself when he started a case, to do all he could to take away the victim’s fear. But this time, it was more than a matter of professional pride. It hurt him deep inside to see Holly so scared and sad.
She sat, huddled in on herself, her arms crossed. “What am I going to do? I can’t just sit and wait for him to do something else.”
Jack leaned forward and squeezed her knees reassuringly. “You don’t have to. You’re not alone. I’m here,” he said, knowing his words were small comfort. The UnSub was escalating because Jack was here.
“Now, why don’t you go on to bed. I’m going to go over the closet for evidence and check in with my boss.” He also wanted to arrange for some surveillance equipment. If the guy was dumb enough to come back, Jack wanted to catch him on videotape.
“No.” Holly scooted away from him. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep.” She stood up and paced the room. “What about a video camera? Can we put in some kind of surveillance thing?” She turned to him as he stood. “I want to catch him. Now.”
Good. She was fighting back. Jack smiled, admiring at her determination.
“We could put it in a cabinet in the kitchen, or in the bookcase here in the living room. Hide it, like they do those nanny cameras designed for watching baby-sitters. Are you smirking at me?” she said.
“No, I’m not. It’s a good idea.”
“Really?”
He nodded and she smiled. It was a shaky smile, but it sent a feeling through him that was as frightening as it was pleasant. She trusted him. It was what he wanted, what he had to have in order to protect her. He felt honored, and weighted down with the responsibility of living up to her trust.
“Now, let me get some work done. I need to see if our intruder left anything behind. You go on to bed and I’ll be in soon.”
She brought her gaze up to meet his, and he winced at the arc of erotic fire that flashed between them.
Bed. That place where they lay as intimately as lovers and as far apart as he could keep them. He saw in her eyes that the image in her brain was the same as in his, the two of them in her bed, covers tangled around them, drenched in passion.
He broke eye contact and
struggled to stay focused. He had to think of Holly as a victim, not a woman who tempted him beyond all reason. “Go on.” His voice was husky.
She stood there for a few more seconds, but he didn’t meet her gaze.
Finally she ducked her head. “Good night.”
She walked down the hall and into her bedroom, closing the door firmly, leaving Jack with the hollow comfort of knowing he had successfully remained detached.
Tuesday, June 24
“Yet the day wears, And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune—
Range the wide house from the wing to the center.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?
But ’tis twilight, you see,—with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!”
I love it, your house, and all the things in it, because it is yours. But fast it’s being spoiled by that defiler who forces you to bend to his will. Still, soon you will be with me in our secret virginal hideaway. You will be delighted that I have hung your wedding dress, that symbol of our love, in the place of honor. Do not make me wait too long, my dearest love.
THE NEXT DAY, Jack bought two mini video recorders and an assortment of hand and electric tools. He spent most of the afternoon setting the cameras up to surreptitiously record all comings and goings through the front and back doors of Holly’s house.
Holly came into the kitchen just as Jack was closing the cabinet door. He wore a close-fitting white T-shirt that hugged every lean muscle, and even closer fitting jeans.
“Do you see it?” he asked.
She squinted. “No.”
“Look under the door handle.”
She stepped closer. There was a hole where the bottom screw should have been. “That’s very clever,” she said. “But that hole is tiny.”
“It’s big enough. The other one is in the bookshelf in the living room, just like you suggested. We’ll turn them on whenever we’re not here.”
“Turn them on now. It’s almost seven o’clock and I have my elderly aerobic class.”
Jack looked up from sweeping up sawdust. She felt his gaze burn her from her cross-trainer-clad feet past her black Lycra exercise pants and bare tummy to her white sports bra. She quickly pulled on a T-shirt.
“I’ll be ready in a minute,” he said. “I just need to change out of these dusty jeans.”
She sniffed impatiently. “I’m late.”
He straightened and leveled his cool gaze at her. “I’ll hurry.”
A few minutes later Jack had changed into slickly pressed khaki pants and a crisp white shirt.
Holly’s bones ached with exhaustion. She’d lain awake until Jack had come to bed, then she’d been acutely aware of him lying next to her, his presence taunting her, drawing her. She ached for the intimacy that she knew he wouldn’t give her.
He wanted her, she knew that. But he would never let anything as unnecessary as sex interfere with his purpose. She could see in his eyes that he considered his attraction to her a nuisance and a hindrance. It was gratifying to know he was so dedicated to protecting her, but it didn’t make her aching desire any easier to bear.
She wished, if he wasn’t going to act on his attraction, that he’d exercise better control, because sometimes his icy gaze grew smoky and soft, his body grew hard, and she knew he was thinking about touching her. And inevitably, she responded. It never lasted, though. In the blink of an eye, his cold detachment returned and she was left exposed.
“Here we are,” she said as they approached the university campus. “Turn here and you can park right across the street from the gym.”
She glanced at him as he opened the car door, considering what his presence was going to do to her elderly aerobics class. He was big, intimidating, and decidedly masculine.
“Are you sure you want to subject yourself to this? There are seventeen ladies in there, all over sixty-five, who will descend upon you like little old bees on honey.”
Jack closed the driver’s door and came around the car, fingering his collar as he glanced toward the gym. “I go where you go. Just don’t leave me alone with them.”
Holly laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you. You know, you could join the class if you wanted to. It would help loosen up that shoulder.”
Jack’s lip curled. “I think not. Aerobics is not my thing. If I’d brought workout clothes, I could check out the weight machines….”
Holly swung open the heavy gym doors. “You can do that. The weight room is over to the right, on the other side of the gymnastics arena. The university supplies gym shorts and shirts. They’re in the linen closet. You’ll see the showers.”
“Nice gym,” he commented.
“The university finally put in a new floor and added the gymnastics arena. We’re so proud of it. The aerobics classes are held over there on the mats.”
She gestured toward them and saw the ladies coming toward them. “Here they come,” she whispered.
Jack looked up to see seventeen various shades of gray atop seventeen shades of pastel bobbing toward him. He shot a quick look at the door, considering escape. He was not equipped to handle pretending to be in love with a woman who was known and adored by an entire town. You can tell. Eric’s words echoed in his ears.
What had made him think he could do this?
After enduring effusive introductions and shaking seventeen hands ranging from skeletal and fragile to plump and pink, Jack was finally freed. Holly urged the ladies over to the mats to start warming up.
Jack fidgeted under their curious gazes until Holly got the plastic stair-steps distributed and began to demonstrate some new warm-up exercises. As she reached high above her head, her nipples stood out clearly under the stretchy sports bra. Her waist and abdomen were taut and delicately muscled and the black tight pants just showed a hint of a beautiful navel above a perfect V, right where he shouldn’t be looking.
Jack glanced around the gym, because he couldn’t keep looking at Holly, not while she moved like that. Not while she was dressed like that.
He quickly cataloged the exits, the various rooms, the places where someone could hide. Satisfied that everything seemed safe, he locked the exterior doors and went to check out the weight room.
After changing into shorts, he ran through some warm-up exercises, then worked out on the machines. He added several pounds to the bar at the bench press and positioned himself to do a few presses. It was gratifying that his shoulder was regaining strength. He’d be able to add more weight after a few days.
Then he ran a mile or so on the treadmill, ending up hot and sweaty and feeling better than he had in days. Glancing at his watch, he realized it had been forty-five minutes. Holly was probably about finished with her class. He jumped into the shower.
He came out of the shower room with a towel wrapped around his loins and using another one to dry his hair, just as Holly pushed open the locker room door. Her face and arms and abdomen glowed with a fine sheen of sweat, and she had a towel around her neck.
She stopped, her eyes wide as she took in his state of undress. “Oh! I didn’t realize you were—”
“Sorry,” he muttered, and instinctively threw his towel over his right shoulder, hiding the surgical scars, then wondered why he’d done it. He just didn’t think he could endure Holly’s kind concern, the look he knew he’d see in her golden-brown eyes, as if she would wipe the scars and the pain away with a touch if she could.
“No, no.” She gulped. “That’s okay.” Her gaze slid down, tickling his skin like the droplets of water on his chest, and lit on the towel that felt so precariously knotted.
“I’ll just—” He took a step forward, gesturing toward the bench where his clothes were neatly folded.
“No! I mean— I’ll leave. Um, I was going to tell you all the ladies are gone except for Mrs. Winger. Bob is always late.” She licked her lips and
turned away. “I’ll wait outside with her.”
“Yeah. Good.”
Jack sighed with relief that Holly was gone, because if she’d stayed another few seconds, the damp towel knotted at his waist wouldn’t have been sufficient to hide his reaction to her presence. Standing there, practically naked while her eyes laid down heat wherever they touched his wet, hot body, was more than he could take. And it didn’t help that the glow her exercise had given her made her even more desirable.
Eric’s words mocked him. He’ll know.
Jack wondered if desperate, unbridled lust would do. If so, then all he had to do was keep his hands off Holly and his eyes on her.
But no, Eric’s point was that the stalker would sense the difference in her.
Gritting his teeth, Jack forced his body back under his control and got dressed. He would find a way to make this work.
As he finished buttoning his shirt and smoothed back his hair, he heard a man’s voice. Tucking his weapon into his holster, he shrugged into his jacket and entered the main part of the gym, prepared to meet Bob again.
Jack assessed the man who’d had the police called on him three times for domestic disputes. He was short, plump and pasty-looking, probably in his early forties. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, and he stood just behind his diminutive mother.
“Jack.” Holly smiled at him as he approached. “Remember Bob Winger from the post office today?”
“Hi again,” Jack said, advancing on him with his hand outstretched.
Bob stared at Jack’s hand for a second, then shook it. “Do you work out, Bob?” Jack asked, allowing a shade of aggressiveness to creep into his voice. He didn’t like Winger. The man was hiding something under that Milquetoast facade.
“I, uh, don’t get much chance—”
“He teaches English, among his many other duties,” Mrs. Winger said. “Tell him, Bobby.”
Bob’s face turned a blotchy pink. His shirt clung damply to his skin. “Holly already told you I teach English and American literature. And I’m the faculty sponsor for the debate team and the poetry club.”
